


Inching Forward

by dizzy



Category: Community
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 21:17:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is set early s3, before Annie moves in with Troy and Abed! My first real attempt at Community fic so I hope it lives up to your expectations. :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inching Forward

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ndnickerson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ndnickerson/gifts).



Jeff isn't sure how he got stuck with Drunk Annie duty, but he's pretty sure it has something to do with his age and being single and living alone. Britta has a roommate and cats (Annie is allergic, who knew?), Shirley has children, Pierce - well, no one was about to let him take a drunk Annie home with him. Even Piece just shook his head grimly when their eyes skirted past him.

So Jeff has Annie. She's sitting on his couch and he sees more about her in this one moment than he has in a year of study groups. Her toenails are painted shell pink and she's got a birthmark just above her ankle. She looks older, not what he'd expected. Her eyes are big and wide but there's something else there, something she tucks away on purpose. Something a little less restrained than the prim and proper he's so used to seeing.

"So Annie," he says, fully prepared to take advantage. With any luck he can gather enough dirt on her tonight to stop every sarcastic and slightly superior barb she could think to make for the next six months. "How does being drunk feel?"

She rolls her eyes at him. "Like I've imbibed too much alcohol."

He frowns. "Are you even really drunk? Drunk people don't say imbibe. They say drunk."

She tilts her head. "I am most definitely drunk. If I weren't drunk I wouldn't be wearing this."

She'd asked for pajamas, refusing to be the stereotypical college kid willing to pass out anywhere and in any state of undress. His stock of female sleepwear is pretty much nil except for that one shirt Britta left here, but he had no intentions of putting Annie in that, feeling somehow dirty at just the thought. So he'd given her a pair of his boxers and a t-shirt.

The shorts are too big, not even the elastic managing to hang on her narrow hips. Jeff is spared that embarrassing view by the fact that the shirt falls almost to her knees. Her hair is pulled into a ponytail, high and tight like a cheerleader, but somehow less bouncy.

"True," he says, accepting that. "But still. You're here, you don't have to worry about driving home, and none of us have to worry about you somehow being jumped and maimed between a cab and your front door. I think what you need is more alcohol."

She isn't opposed to the idea. She takes the drink that he makes her with a grin. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he says, his own beer ice cold and just the right amount of weight in his stomach to counter the weird lightness of seeing her there.

Her legs are really long.

Maybe he's more like Pierce than he thought.

He tries to look away but she's caught him. "What were you staring at?"

"Nothing," he says. "You're really not drunk enough."

"I've never been this drunk before," she says. "I don't know when drunk enough is."

"Keep drinking. I'll tell you when you're there."

She frowns, a small and delicate little quirk of her mouth. "I don't want to get sick. I hate getting sick."

He shrugs. "It's a risk you take when drinking. I promise I'll hold your hair back while you yark."

She snickers, almost a snort. "Yark. That's funny."

"Okay, now you sound drunk."

She stiffens immediately, apparently not liking that. "I think I can hold my liquor!"

There's something of a kid in her tone, someone that wants to be older than they are. He gets it - it's her thing, like Pierce wants to be young, and Troy wants to be Jeff's equal, and Jeff- okay, not psychoanalyzing himself, _he_ isn't that drunk yet.

 _"Yeah," he says, appeasing her, but good enough that she buys it. "You kind of drank Britta under the table."_

 _She beams. It's cute, endearing. Disney cartoons and cotton candy at the fair and hot _damn_ her legs are so pale and silky..._

He shakes his head, like he can actually rid himself of the thoughts like that.

It doesn't help that over the course of the next few minutes, to a lulling and easy soundtrack of conversation about Senor Chang's current level of (lacking) sanity and Abed's latest film fixation, she stretches herself out so that her arms are around the pillow he's given her and her toes nudge his thigh.

He reaches down on a whim and grabs her foot. It's small, easy to wrap his hand around. She jumps, wide-eyed looking at him. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing." He grins, just a little, and squeezes her foot.

She makes a noise, surprise and then low pleasure that jolts right through him. "Do that again."

"What? This?" He squeezes, pressure against the arch, and she sighs. "Never had anyone rub your feet?"

She shakes her head. "My boyfriend in high school thought feet were disgusting."

"And he was gay."

"And he was gay," she says, and she starts to look the faintest bit upset and he doesn't like that so he presses his thumb hard against her heel and she makes that nice vaguely sexual noise again. He pulls her foot all the way into his lap and uses both hands. She turns onto her back, eyes dropping half shut, utterly blissed out.

He licks his lips and remembers the taste of bubble gum lip gloss and realizes exactly how Annie played them all when she'd said in that little girl voice how scary her apartment was and how she just didn't want to go back alone. She'd asked them all but it had been him she'd been looking at and him she'd smiled at when he'd volunteered (even past the groans of everyone else).

And he can't deny that his own heart hadn't started to thump just a little faster, a level of anticipation somewhere between schoolboy crush and _gonna get laid_.

Right now, with the reaction she's having, he's thinking it's maybe more the second one. He isn't paying too much attention to his own reactions here, not until her heel nudges against him.

Her eyes pop open, more because he's stopped than because she realizes where her foot is. It takes her a second and then her eyes go impossibly wider and she looks at him. He expects her to ask something, say something embarrassing that will break the mood here. He's almost counting on it. She'll call him a perv and slap his arm and that'll be the boner killer that he needs.

Instead she wiggles her foot, presses it against the entire length of him through the jeans he's still wearing. He groans, caught off guard, choking the noise as soon as he can but not so soon that she misses it.

He's very surprised to find her grinning when he screws up the nerve to look at her.

"Don't say a word," he warns her. "Don't say it."

"What?" She smiles as she asks it. She hasn't pulled her foot away, but to be fair, he's still kind of holding it. "I don't think I've ever done that to a guy before. That - it was me - right? You're not like... you're not thinking of Br-"

"It was you. And trust me, you've had that effect on a guy before." He heads off the sudden doubt on her face. He's not sure that it was exactly the right thing to do, but it makes Annie look happy again and, oh fucking hell, he's definitely drunk too. When did he get drunk?

(Probably his fifth jack and coke back at the bar, just before he said _It's okay guys, Annie can crash with me_. No one wanted her going back to that apartment alone, and clearly they've reached the point where everyone either thinks they're already sleeping together, or think Annie's old enough to make her own mistakes.)

She bites her bottom lip and how can a girl look so sweet and sexy as fuck at the same time? Her other foot comes up to rest a few inches short of his thigh, knee bent a little. He can see up the loose leg of the shorts (his shorts) she's wearing, a flash of yellow panties. His problem goes from a little turned on to aching hardness in about .02 seconds.

He pushes her foot off of his lap, standing up. "Okay. Bedtime."

She full on pouts, cheek against the pillow and hair falling in her face. "I'm not sleepy yet."

"Yeah, well, me either. But I need to go in there and you need to stay in here."

"Jeff-" She whines, reaching out a hand to grab at his. That surprised him almost more than anything else and he just kind of lets her grip his fingers. "Why the sudden chilv- chivalry? I like the way it feels when you look at me."

"I'd like-" He stops, danger zone alarms flashing. "I can't."

"I didn't think you'd be so chivalrous." She says.

"I didn't think I would be either. Turns out, I have my limits. Drunk barely-more-than-teenagers-"

It's the wrong thing to say and he sees it immediately. She stares at him in disappointment and hurt, letting go of his hand and after a few seconds rolling over. She probably does it so he won't see the tears.

"Shit," he says, voice low. He stares down at her. The urge to comfort her is strong, but he's pretty sure that as far as 'not having sex with Annie goes' this is the best deterrent he's going to get.

This is especially conflicting since he's still not even sure he wanted a deterrent to begin with.

"Look," he says. "I don't want this to get weird. Annie, you're... attractive and I..."

Something in his mind tells him to stop, that this isn't a good idea.

But Annie says, "Yeah?" In that hopeful voice, and his mind is overruled.

"And I like you. I like to look at you, and I like to talk to you, and sometimes when I'm doing those things, it's easy to forget I could be your dad."

"You couldn't-"

"Shush," Jeff says, smiling at her. "Look, I like you, and I think my track record with liking people and trying to make it work is pretty bad. The thing is, most of the time when it doesn't work, it doesn't work with someone that's been around the block just as many times as me. You haven't. At some point, you'll learn the ropes. You'll know what it feels like when you want something and it just isn't happening. Or when you want it, and then you stop wanting it. It sucks, Annie. And I don't want to be the person that teaches you that."

"So you really want to watch me be with someone else?" She asks, sitting up.

"No," he admits. "Annie, I don't know what I want."

She leans in and kisses him; just like that, on the mouth, and he kisses her back because it's Annie and he wants to. It's a different sort of kiss than the one in the parking lot; he sinks his fingers into her hair and neither of them pull back until they're both a little breathless. "I want that."

"Yeah," he says, smiling a little, another soft kiss and then he pulls away. "Look, I'm going to take you into my bedroom, and you're going to get into bed, and I'm gonna come sleep out here. And in the morning I can take you somewhere for breakfast without feeling like the world's biggest sleezeball, and we can see where it goes from there, okay?"

She nods and smiles at him happily and oh, fuck it, he kisses her one more time, and then does exactly as he'd promised and takes her to his bed.


End file.
